A Reading from the Letters of a Werewolf
by Indarae
Summary: After Sirius Black shows up on his doorstep, Remus Lupin reflects on the events that changed a gang of five to a man alone.


A/N: After seeing the HP movie again, and getting ahold of a copy of Prisoner of Azkaban, a few questions occurred to me — most of all, the question of why Sirius was so ready to accept that Remus was the traitor among the group. Now... admittedly, Sirius isn't my favourite HP character... but his actions did put Remus in a bad place and lost him his job. And then Dumbledore sends Sirius off to lie low at Lupin's? ::snort:: I'd be annoyed, too. Right — the letter. Go on, read it.

**** A Reading from the Letters of a Werewolf 

Dear Harry,

Sirius showed up on my doorstep today. I wanted to write and tell you that he's fine, though he's worried sick about you. I wanted to write to tell you I am too, though I suppose I don't really have the right to be. Sirius is your godfather, escaped convict or not. I was just your Defense professor for a year. They probably would've chosen Peter for the job over me, anyways. Your parents saw my darkness, before the end. But that's what a werewolf is. Dark.

They thought I was the traitor, you know. Not Sirius, and certainly not Peter. Not Sirius who'd grown up with your father, not Peter who was too meek and cowardly to stand up for himself. So that left me. The werewolf. 

Seems very prejudiced, doesn't it? That the men who had stood by me through seven years of school, broke the rules to be with me during the monthly changes would accuse me of betrayal? But it wasn't a stretch. I am a Dark Creature. I'm a beast, not a being, not anymore.

They had plenty of reason to suspect me, Harry. It doesn't seem like it now, of course, but I was drawn to the Dark then. Voldemort was growing in power, and though I knew that Voldemort was evil, the power was alluring. The power offered an escape from the monster I was every twenty-eight days. Dozens of my kind flocked to his cause, with the lure of a cure to the disease.

Disease. They call lycanthrope a disease. It's no disease, it's sodding curse. It forces the victim into a solitary life for fear of hurting another human being, a fear of making someone else into the monster you are. And when you find another person to talk to; confide in, spend those terrible, painful, bloody nights with — it's only a matter of time before fate jumps in and pulls it all apart.

Voldemort whispered rumors to the underworld circuits about a cure for lycanthrope, one which he was slowly creating with the help of his Potions Masters and Curse Breakers. And I heard them, one full moon, from another werewolf.

And I made the mistake of telling Sirius.

Your godfather certainly isn't the angel with a slightly crooked halo he pretends to be. Yes, he was a prankster in school. He was also almost a murderer. And while I was surprised to find out that he'd betrayed James and Lily, later, I wasn't surprised that he got angry enough to blow up a street full of Muggles. He has a dangerous, dangerous temper. His temper and his pranks together — they had the tendancy to end in disaster, especially after we were out of school. He couldn't hold a job, because he'd get mad and play a trick on his boss. He couldn't keep a steady girlfriend, because every girl he got serious with ended up on the butt of a well-meaning joke that ended in a shouting match and Sirius on the walk on his arse. Your godfather wasn't a successful man, Harry. I don't think he ever will be, even if he manages to get freed. Certainly, fourteen years in Azkaban managed to change him — but that change was most obviously not for the better. He scares me now. In his eyes is the blankness of a man who sees everything through despair.

When I told him about the cure Voldemort offered, he assumed that I intended to take the git up on the offer. And you know what really hurt? He didn't bother trying to convince me to stay with the Light. He just ran off to James with the news that little Remmie had turned out just as dark as Severus Snape. And I didn't talk to him again until last year in the Shrieking Shack.

You'd already been born. I was there that day, you know. Your mum had the dirtiest mouth on any person — witch or wizard, Muggle or magic — that I'd ever heard. And she used every word she knew and probably some she made up to curse your father during the twelve hours it took to give birth to you. Sirius dubbed you Pronglet the moment we knew you were a boy. Lily thought it was stupid. With her gone, I doubt he'll call you it again.

Damn myself for being stupid enough to tell Sirius that rumor. If I hadn't told him, maybe he wouldn't have suspected me. Maybe, if there was trust between the two of us, Peter would've been discovered before it was too late for your parents. If Sirius hadn't been a prick and refused to ask me about it, maybe you'd still have a mum and dad. If wishes were horses, I suppose. And so your parents are thirteen years in their graves, I'm still a lonely werewolf, and Sirius Black is snoring on my couch.

How do I forgive him, after everything his meddling cost me? A tenuous friendship with Severus Snape in 5th year. The loss of three friends when he decided I'd gone Dark. The loss of the only four people I'd ever been close to, because he wouldn't listen to reason. I was the last Marauder.

We had such dreams in school. What a pathetic lot we turned out to be. Two dead Aurors, a Death Eater, a convict, and a jobless werewolf. I don't understand why it had to happen that way. We were the dream team, the best and brightest of our year, beloved of the professors despite our jokes and beloved of the students because of them.

I guess we grew up. And now I'm old before my time. A greying old man at the age of thirty-five. I'll probably die from a silver bullet to the gut before I'm fourty — or if I manage to make it longer, it'll be from lung cancer from the damned cigarettes I can't get rid of, a product of Sirius' 7th year rebellion against his parents.

It seems I ended up with the butt of Sirius' failures, didn't I. Almost a murderer because of a harmless' prank. A chain smoker, because of his squib cousin's extra pack of cigarettes. And now, an unemployed professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts with his sorry arse hiding out from the Ministry on my couch. If he gets caught, I'll get sent to Azkaban for harbouring the bastard, too.

So here I am. Lonely, old, slowly poisoning myself with wolfsbane and nicotine, poor and miserable. I've got a lot to thank bloody Sirius Black for, Harry. But you know what? I'll let him stay on the couch and hide him from the Ministry. I'll fight the good fight against Voldemort, even though the man might've had a cure. Why not give up now? Because that's not who I am. 

I won't send this letter. I'll probably burn it so Sirius won't learn what I think of him, after twenty-four years of acquaintance. And I'll put on a happy face and hide it all, because I'm Remus Lupin, loyal friend of James and Lily Potter, the last Marauder. And I'm not going to let this, of all things, be my death.

Regards,

Remus

A/N: well, let me know your thoughts!


End file.
